The one-year anniversary episode with Olivia Attia: Reflecting on the past year and looking forward to exciting times ahead

**Peter Attia** (0:04)
Hey, everyone, welcome to The Peter Attia Drive. I'm your host, Peter Attia.
The Drive is a result of my hunger for optimizing performance, health, longevity, critical thinking, along with a few other obsessions along the way. I've spent the last several years working with some of the most successful top performing individuals in the world. And this podcast is my attempt to synthesize what I've learned along the way to help you live a higher quality, more fulfilling life. If you enjoy this podcast, you can find more information on today's episode and other topics at peterattiamd.com.
Hey everybody, welcome to this week's episode of The Drive. My guest today is sort of me. As you may recall, we launched this podcast with three episodes on July 2nd, 2018 And the few weeks prior to that, we launched a special little sneak peek episode where I was interviewed by my daughter, Olivia. So we figured there would be no better way to celebrate the one year birthday of The Drive than with another interview by Olivia, as we talk about the past year and some exciting things to come over the next 12 months. So I hope you enjoy this little look back and look forward.

**Olivia Attia** (1:17)
I'm going to start by asking the first question I asked a year ago. Does the world really need another podcast?

**Peter Attia** (1:26)
I mean, probably not. Someone told me that there are, and I could be wrong, but like 500 new podcasts appear in the podcast store every week.

**Olivia Attia** (1:37)
That's a lot.

**Peter Attia** (1:37)
Yeah, so I'm not going to put you on the spot and make you calculate how many podcasts that is in the last year.
And by the way, it's probably more than 500 But anyway, no, the world does not need another podcast. But I think that what we started out doing last year was a three month experiment. And at the end of that 12 weeks or whatever it was, I was surprised by how much fun I had doing this. I was surprised by the feedback we got from folks that said that they kind of dug it. And so even if the world doesn't need another podcast, we're just going to keep doing this.

**Olivia Attia** (2:09)
I remember you telling me from when I interviewed you for the preview that if it worked out well, you would start making more, right?

**Peter Attia** (2:15)
Yep, that's what we've done.

**Olivia Attia** (2:17)
So is there something you've learned in the past year making these podcasts?

**Peter Attia** (2:20)
Well, like, do you mean specific new pieces of knowledge or just more generally?

**Olivia Attia** (2:26)
More generally.

**Peter Attia** (2:27)
Yeah, I mean, I've learned that it's way harder to do a good interview than I could have imagined at the outset. I think, for example, now when I listen to other podcasts, I find I'm not listening to them from a pure enjoyment standpoint. I'm listening to them and trying to learn from them.
So, for example, like I think Tim Ferriss, who you know, of course, very well, I think he just does an awesome job. I think Sam Harris does an awesome job. I mean, I think, you know, Stephen Dubner, I think there's a lot of people out there that do really good jobs interviewing people. And so now I listen to these people and I take notes on what could I do better? How can I be a better interviewer? And I think right now I'm a two out of 10 I was a one out of 10 a year ago. So I've got a long way to go. And that's, I didn't, I wouldn't have expected that a year ago that it would be this difficult.

**Olivia Attia** (3:21)
So every podcast, you're kind of writing something down and then the next one, you try and make it even better.

**Peter Attia** (3:26)
I mean, it's not always that linear because as, well, I don't know if you know, have you listened to any of them?

**Olivia Attia** (3:30)
Yes.

**Peter Attia** (3:31)
Which ones have you listened to?

**Olivia Attia** (3:32)
I've listened to Draco, Tim Ferriss. I listened to the one where I interviewed you and a couple other ones too.

**Peter Attia** (3:38)
Okay, so, but you probably haven't listened to some of the really nerdy technical ones.

**Olivia Attia** (3:42)
I don't think so.

**Peter Attia** (3:43)
So I think the podcasts fit into different categories. Sometimes the technical ones, my criticisms of myself are different. They're, hey, in listening to this, I can see how someone who's not well versed in this topic could get lost. You could have done a better job structuring the discussion or pausing to set context.